On this page I will include information to support teachers of students in the Year 9 and Year 10 learning support classes. Please email me to request further information. aitkene@freyberg.ac.nz
STANINES The students in the support classes will have been selected based on low literacy stanine levels, among other things. A stanine ("standard nine") level is simply a representation of the level of ability an individual has in comparison with his or her year level group based on "a -point scale used for normalized testscores, with 1-3 below average, 4-6 average,and 7-9 above average; one of the steps in a nine-point scale of standard scores" (From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stanine). [For greater detail of the stanine scale in relation to standard deviations and percentages you might like to follow this link.]
STANINES 1-3: "BELOW AVERAGE" READERS Essentially, the students we will be teaching will not have the reading and writing skills that enable them to access secondary level texts. Each student will have a unique range of reading and writing skills. This is because the process of learning about written language is not entirely linear.
The Simple View of Reading The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is that Reading Comprehension (understanding what is read) depends on two components: the ability to decode (read the words) and the ability to understand language (vocabulary/ syntax/ grammar/ inference, etc). This view helps conceptualize the three categories of reading disability.
Normally Developing Readers: Good Word Recognition and Good Language Comprehension Specific Reading Comprehension Difficulties: Good Word Recognition and Poor Language Comprehension Dyslexic Readers: Poor Word Recognition and Good Language Comprehension Mixed Reading Disability: Poor Word Recognition and Poor Language Comprehension
KNOW THE LEARNER: It is really important that we know each student's area(s) of difficulty so we can help them develop the skills that are lacking.
How do we help? Students with SRCD need:
to be taught reading comprehension strategies
to be taught how to utilise the features of different text types
to be encouraged to develop their subject-specific and general knowledge and vocabulary
listening skills
language skills - grammar, syntax
Students with Dyslexia need:
to be taught letter/sound correspondences, syllables, regular and irregular spelling patterns, morphemes
to be directed, first and foremost, to the letters in an unfamiliar word
to use contextual information to confirm predictions about unfamiliar words
to read information repetitively to improve sight-word memory, to become more fluent, to improve reading rate (speed)
Note: Because dyslexic readers need to concentrate hard on the letters within unfamiliar words, the cognitive over-load means that they find it difficult to hold what they read in memory long enough to think about what the sentence or paragraph means as a whole. It is essential that you allow enough time for these students to identify unfamiliar words, decode them, read them in context, and consider the understanding of the extract as a whole.
Students with Mixed RD need all of the above.
Why have these students not learned to read already? The process of learning to read can be likened to following a road on which skills must be gained before progressing. Along the way, readers who fail to learn a reading skill fall by the wayside. These readers begin on a different path which is much harder and from which it is very difficult to return to the main path. While off the path, students developing coping strategies which hinder their progress to proficient reading. For example, if a reader failed in the early stages of reading to learn to decode effectively (s)he will develop an increasing number of negative associated behaviours and attributes. (S)he will develop: frustration with reading, poor motivation, lower self-concept and lower self-esteem, and poor reading strategies like guessing and referring to pictures and context for help. Such students will read less and less, experience less and less opportunity to read and learn reading skills, and encounter thousand fewer words than proficient readers. The longer a poor reader remains stuck off the path to proficient reading the harder and less likely it is for them to return. 20-25% of all readers need to be taught EXPLICITLY skills essential to reading - such as phonemic awareness, alphabet, sound-symbol relationships, regular and irregular spelling patterns. The New Zealand primary school system (despite research by Bill Tunmer, Kieth Greaney and colleagues over the last two decades) still fails to cater adequately to this need.
Want to know more about reading? Follow this LINK.
FURTHER READING: Aaron, P. G. (1997). The Impending Demise of the Discrepancy Formula. Review of Educational Literature, 67(4), 461-502. Catts, H. W., & Kamhi, A. G. (2005). Language and Reading Disabilities (2 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia. In K. Patterson, J. Marshall, & M. Colheart (Eds.), Surface dyslexia (pp. 301-330). London: Erlbaum. Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. S. (2006). Introduction to Response to Intervention: What, why, and how valid is it? Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 93-99. Gough, P. B., & Tunmer, W. E. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10. Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (1993). The components of reading. In G. B. Thompson, W. E. Tunmer, & T. Nicholson (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 1-19). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Juel, C. (1988). Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 437-447. MoE, N. Z. (2010). Teaching as inquiry. Retrieved May 2011, from The New Zealand Curriculum Online: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Inquiry/Teaching-as-inquiry Nation, K. (2005). Children's reading comprehension difficulties. In M. J. Snowling, & C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A Handbook (pp. 248-265). Oxford: Blackwell. Papanicolaou, A. C., Simos, P. G., Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Foorman, B., Castillo, E. M., et al. (2003). Development and plasticity of neurophysiological processes involved in reading. In B. Foorman (Ed.), Preventing and remediating reading difficulties: Bringing science to scale (pp. 3-21). Timonium, MD: York Press. Pressley, M. (2002). Reading instruction that works: The case for balanced teaching. New York: Guildford Press. Prochnow, J. E., Tunmer, W. E., Chapman, J. W., & Greaney, K. T. (2001). A longitudinal study of early literacy achievement and gender. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 36, 221-236. Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological Recoding and Orthographic Learning: A Direct Test of the Self-Teaching Hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 95-129. Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Spear-Swerling, L., & Sternberg, R. L. (1996). Roads to reading disability. In Off track: When poor readers become "learning disabled" (pp. 113-152). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-406. Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Discrepancy definitions of reading disability: Has intelligence led us astray? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 7-29. Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (1996). A developmental model of dyslexia: Can the construct be saved? Dyslexia, 2, 179-189. Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2007). Language-related differences between discrepancy-defined and non-discrepancy-defined poor readers: A longitudinal study of dyslexia in New Zealand. Dyslexia, 13, 42-66. Tunmer, W. E., & Greaney, K. (2010). Defining Dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3), 229-243. Vellutino, F., Scanlon, D., Sipay, E., Small, S., Pratt, A., Chen, R., et al. (1996). Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers: Early intervention as a vehicle for distingushing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic casues of specific reading disability. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 601-638.
Please email me to request further information. aitkene@freyberg.ac.nz
STANINES
The students in the support classes will have been selected based on low literacy stanine levels, among other things. A stanine ("standard nine") level is simply a representation of the level of ability an individual has in comparison with his or her year level group based on "a -point scale used for normalized testscores, with 1-3 below average, 4-6 average,and 7-9 above average; one of the steps in a nine-point scale of standard scores" (From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stanine).
[For greater detail of the stanine scale in relation to standard deviations and percentages you might like to follow this link.]
STANINES 1-3: "BELOW AVERAGE" READERS
Essentially, the students we will be teaching will not have the reading and writing skills that enable them to access secondary level texts. Each student will have a unique range of reading and writing skills. This is because the process of learning about written language is not entirely linear.
The Simple View of Reading
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is that Reading Comprehension (understanding what is read) depends on two components: the ability to decode (read the words) and the ability to understand language (vocabulary/ syntax/ grammar/ inference, etc). This view helps conceptualize the three categories of reading disability.
Normally Developing Readers: Good Word Recognition and Good Language Comprehension
Specific Reading Comprehension Difficulties: Good Word Recognition and Poor Language Comprehension
Dyslexic Readers: Poor Word Recognition and Good Language Comprehension
Mixed Reading Disability: Poor Word Recognition and Poor Language Comprehension
KNOW THE LEARNER: It is really important that we know each student's area(s) of difficulty so we can help them develop the skills that are lacking.
How do we help?
Students with SRCD need:
Students with Dyslexia need:
- to be taught letter/sound correspondences, syllables, regular and irregular spelling patterns, morphemes
- to be directed, first and foremost, to the letters in an unfamiliar word
- to use contextual information to confirm predictions about unfamiliar words
- to read information repetitively to improve sight-word memory, to become more fluent, to improve reading rate (speed)
Note: Because dyslexic readers need to concentrate hard on the letters within unfamiliar words, the cognitive over-load means that they find it difficult to hold what they read in memory long enough to think about what the sentence or paragraph means as a whole. It is essential that you allow enough time for these students to identify unfamiliar words, decode them, read them in context, and consider the understanding of the extract as a whole.Students with Mixed RD need all of the above.
Why have these students not learned to read already?
The process of learning to read can be likened to following a road on which skills must be gained before progressing. Along the way, readers who fail to learn a reading skill fall by the wayside. These readers begin on a different path which is much harder and from which it is very difficult to return to the main path. While off the path, students developing coping strategies which hinder their progress to proficient reading.
For example, if a reader failed in the early stages of reading to learn to decode effectively (s)he will develop an increasing number of negative associated behaviours and attributes. (S)he will develop: frustration with reading, poor motivation, lower self-concept and lower self-esteem, and poor reading strategies like guessing and referring to pictures and context for help. Such students will read less and less, experience less and less opportunity to read and learn reading skills, and encounter thousand fewer words than proficient readers. The longer a poor reader remains stuck off the path to proficient reading the harder and less likely it is for them to return.
20-25% of all readers need to be taught EXPLICITLY skills essential to reading - such as phonemic awareness, alphabet, sound-symbol relationships, regular and irregular spelling patterns. The New Zealand primary school system (despite research by Bill Tunmer, Kieth Greaney and colleagues over the last two decades) still fails to cater adequately to this need.
From http://www.reading.org//Publish.aspx?page=/publications/bbv/books/bk502/abstracts/bk502-18-spear-swerling.html&mode=redirect, retrieved January, 2012.
Want to know more about reading? Follow this LINK.
FURTHER READING:
Aaron, P. G. (1997). The Impending Demise of the Discrepancy Formula. Review of Educational Literature, 67(4), 461-502.
Catts, H. W., & Kamhi, A. G. (2005). Language and Reading Disabilities (2 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia. In K. Patterson, J. Marshall, & M. Colheart (Eds.), Surface dyslexia (pp. 301-330). London: Erlbaum.
Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. S. (2006). Introduction to Response to Intervention: What, why, and how valid is it? Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 93-99.
Gough, P. B., & Tunmer, W. E. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10.
Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (1993). The components of reading. In G. B. Thompson, W. E. Tunmer, & T. Nicholson (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 1-19). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Juel, C. (1988). Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 437-447.
MoE, N. Z. (2010). Teaching as inquiry. Retrieved May 2011, from The New Zealand Curriculum Online: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Inquiry/Teaching-as-inquiry
Nation, K. (2005). Children's reading comprehension difficulties. In M. J. Snowling, & C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A Handbook (pp. 248-265). Oxford: Blackwell.
Papanicolaou, A. C., Simos, P. G., Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Foorman, B., Castillo, E. M., et al. (2003). Development and plasticity of neurophysiological processes involved in reading. In B. Foorman (Ed.), Preventing and remediating reading difficulties: Bringing science to scale (pp. 3-21). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Pressley, M. (2002). Reading instruction that works: The case for balanced teaching. New York: Guildford Press.
Prochnow, J. E., Tunmer, W. E., Chapman, J. W., & Greaney, K. T. (2001). A longitudinal study of early literacy achievement and gender. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 36, 221-236.
Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological Recoding and Orthographic Learning: A Direct Test of the Self-Teaching Hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 95-129.
Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Spear-Swerling, L., & Sternberg, R. L. (1996). Roads to reading disability. In Off track: When poor readers become "learning disabled" (pp. 113-152). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-406.
Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Discrepancy definitions of reading disability: Has intelligence led us astray? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 7-29.
Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (1996). A developmental model of dyslexia: Can the construct be saved? Dyslexia, 2, 179-189.
Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2007). Language-related differences between discrepancy-defined and non-discrepancy-defined poor readers: A longitudinal study of dyslexia in New Zealand. Dyslexia, 13, 42-66.
Tunmer, W. E., & Greaney, K. (2010). Defining Dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3), 229-243.
Vellutino, F., Scanlon, D., Sipay, E., Small, S., Pratt, A., Chen, R., et al. (1996). Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers: Early intervention as a vehicle for distingushing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic casues of specific reading disability. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 601-638.